Ottawa, Canada – (FCM) - The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) plans to help Canadian municipalities get into the market for carbon-offset credits. Municipal governments are committed to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from their operations, and upcoming federal air-emission regulations are expected to allow municipal governments to sell their emission reductions as carbon-offset credits.

FCM has created the Green Municipal Corporation to purchase, aggregate and sell carbon-offset credits earned by municipal governments.

“A changing climate will have a profound impact on our communities, both people and infrastructure,” said FCM President Gord Steeves. “FCM’s Green Municipal Corporation is another demonstration of our commitment to contribute to meeting Canada’s climate change and clean air objectives. We encourage all Canadian municipalities to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions and work with GMC to turn these reductions into carbon offset credits.”

The corporation will work with provincial and territorial municipal associations to help municipal governments overcome regulatory, technical and financial barriers and to minimize the risks of entering the market. The corporation’s services will be financed entirely by fees for services.

Members of the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program interested in participating in the Canadian Offset Credit market should consider that:

• the completion of a greenhouse gas inventory (PCP Milestone One) will greatly assist municipalities to understand the emissions profile of their municipality, identify projects that could result in tradable credits, and build internal capacity to track emissions for the purpose of trading; and




• PCP members may trade their reduction credits and still count them towards the municipality’s emissions reductions targets established as part of PCP Milestone Two. The sale of credits must be identified when reporting to PCP in Milestone Five.

Green Municipal Corporation Services

Green Municipal Corporation will offer the following services to FCM members.

1. Regulatory assistance: For municipal GHG emission reductions to be eligible as offset credits, projects must be validated, verified, certified and registered under regulations and procedures the federal government is expected to soon announce. Green Municipal Corporation will employ experts to perform these regulatory tasks and will manage these tasks for participating municipalities.
2. Risk management: Green Municipal Corporation will protect participating municipalities from the risks inherent in selling offset credits, which stem from the uncertain supply of carbon credits from any one emission-reducing project over the project life.




3. Purchase and sale of offset credits: By aggregating the supply of offset credits from municipal projects across the country, Green Municipal Corporation will be able to attract the best possible prices from buyers at the lowest possible transaction costs. Green Municipal Corporation will offer municipalities a guaranteed price for all offset credits purchased as well as a share in the revenue if the final selling price exceeds the guarantee price.




4. Technical and financial advice: Green Municipal Corporation will provide impartial comments on financial or technical issues covering a range of emission-reducing technologies or project types. Green Municipal Corporation will be able to help municipalities assess the costs and benefits of potential offset-credit projects and to comment on whether specific projects are likely to be eligible for the offset market. If requested by municipalities, Green Municipal Corporation will also source financing and technical offers for the preparation of feasibility studies and for project design/construction/management services.

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For More Information: Federation of Canadian Municipalities